by Deryn Lake
Demelza’s freshwater eyes met his in a cool, somewhat calculating, glance.
‘Oh, yes, you see I was born in Boston. My family lived here for some while. I knew Joseph when he was a small boy.’
‘Did you go to school with him?’
‘Lud, no. He was a clever little devil and went to the Latin school. I was a girl so I was sent to a dame school and then, aged fourteen, put on a boat and made my way to England. So there was no finishing school for me, alas.’
‘I didn’t know they had finishing schools for young ladies in Boston.’
Dr Warren put in: ‘They used not to, Demelza is jesting. But nowadays an Englishwoman runs one. What is her name now?’
‘Madame Clive,’ answered Demelza Conway.
‘That’s it, Clive,’ said Dr Warren.
And neither looked at John, who had one hand out on the bar, supporting him while the words seemed to pound and re-echo in his brain. Eventually he spoke, his voice hoarse and strained. ‘Did she do acting at all?’
Joseph Warren raised his brows. ‘Theatrical performances are not allowed in Boston. They offend religious susceptibilities. But then there’s a lot that happens here that is kept sotto voce. I believe Madame Clive holds performances for her girls. Nobody goes except the parents – and one or two others who creep in to get a bit of culture.’ Joseph actually giggled. ‘I was only fifteen when I saw an excerpt from The Way of the World. My parents took me. But I can remember laughing so much that I almost had a seizure. Not that I understood the play; it was the bravura of the whole occasion that I relished.’
‘And where does Madame Clive put on these performances?’
‘In a barn near her cottage.’
‘Which is where?’
‘Oh, quite a smart place, though small. It’s not far from Hancock’s great mansion on the east side.’
‘Tell me, does she have a first name, by any chance?’
Joseph and Demelza both put their heads on one side, smiling. They looked like a pair of wise parrots. Eventually, he said, ‘No. She must have, of course, but I’m afraid I don’t know it.’
And that was that. Was it just blind hope that made the Apothecary’s hands tremble as he went to pick up his glass, or was it just general fatigue? Could it be possible that the once great actress, disillusioned with life in Britain, desperate to get away from her daughter, had emigrated to the Colonies? Or was it just John’s faint dream that yet again their paths might cross that planted the seed within his mind? One day soon, he thought, he would find the answer.
SEVEN
The first thing to do, John thought as he rose the next morning, was to eat a hearty breakfast, then to settle his children in with a healthy, hard-working girl who could act as a temporary nanny. After that he would go hunting for some useful employment which would bring them in some much-needed money until a ship sailing for London appeared in the docks. Having been given some useful addresses by his landlady, he left the children in the guardianship of Jane Hawthorne, who was having a quiet morning due to Lady Eawiss having a bad spell of gout which confined her to bed, and walked first to the Orange Tree Tavern.
Last night it had been impossible to speak to anyone about the fate of Josiah Hallowell, but John vividly recalled a niece being mentioned in the fateful letter sent to him in London and decided that it must be she that he attempted to find. The tavern was closed but there were sounds from the back of someone chopping wood, so calling out, ‘Hello,’ the Apothecary made his way to the paved area behind the building.
A terribly plain girl with scrawny hair tied into two listless plaits which hung about her thin shoulders had an axe in her hand and was hacking away at a large piece of wood which failed completely to yield to her savage swipes. She looked up as John entered the yard and wrinkled up her nose. ‘Yes?’
‘Miss Hallowell?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Rawlings. John Rawlings.’
She stared blankly, her eyes enlarged by a pair of spectacles, the sides of which sat uncomfortably on her ears. ‘Who?’
‘Rawlings. I’m an apothecary. Originally from Nassau Street, Soho, in London.’
‘Well, this is a tavern. The herbalist is in North Square.’
‘I’ve come about a letter I had from Josiah Hallowell.’
‘He’s dead.’
‘I am aware of that, Mistress.’
‘So?’
‘If you’ll just let me speak, I will tell you why I’m here.’
She looked him up and down and John concluded that she was quite one of the ugliest little things he had ever seen in his life. Her brown eyes, hugely enlarged by the magnifying lenses, had a horrendous squint and there was a gap through which one could have slid a ruler between her two front teeth.
‘I’m not stopping you,’ she answered, the longest sentence she had ever used as far as he was concerned.
John bowed. ‘Madam, the letter from the late Mr Hallowell invited me to visit him in Boston to talk about the sparkling water I produce. Apparently his niece – who left England to live with him – bought some and liked it so much that she took him a sample. Do you know what I’m talking about?’
She put down the axe, wiped her sleeve across her brow and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Are you the niece?’ he asked, relieved that he had finally established the reason for his call.
‘Yes,’ she answered, and the verbal flood gates opened. ‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d know what it would be like. I mean to say, I lived in Bristol, which was twice the size of this place. And when I get here, what do I find? I’m supposed to be maid-of-all-work. My uncle promised me that I could find a husband in Boston. But do I find one. No, no, no!’ She sat down on an upturned barrel. ‘I’m sick of the place. I really mean it. All the unmarried men are either oaves – is that right? No, it’s oafs. Or too high up the social ladder. Talk about disappointing. I could weep.’
And this she proceeded to do, very noisily and with much blowing of the nose.
John said, ‘Come, come, my dear. There’s no need to take on so. You could always sell the tavern and set yourself up as a governess or some such.’
She looked up at him, snotty and miserable, and he said impulsively, ‘I could always rent premises from you and turn them into an apothecary’s shop.’
She brightened. ‘Could we serve drinks on the side?’
‘I don’t know about alcohol but I could see no harm in serving restoring medicinal potions and cups of tea or coffee.’
‘And glasses of cooling lemonade perhaps?’
‘Why not?’
It was all so foolish, so quicksilver fast, like a decision made on the turn of a coin, but it appealed to the Apothecary enormously. There was one problem, however. He looked at the girl, now rapidly drying her eyes and readjusting her spectacles.
‘Can I owe you the first week’s rent? I am quite cucumberish at the moment.’
She smiled. ‘Tell me no more of it. I have been cucumberish since my arrival here.’ She stood up. ‘But somehow I feel I can trust you. Where were you an apothecary?’
‘In Shug Lane, Piccadilly, London, Ma’am. I had a letter of introduction from your late uncle with me. The reason that I do not bear it is that our good ship was blown off course and finally foundered in the sea off the rocky coastland west of Boston. The fact that I am here at all is nothing short of a miracle.’
The ugly little girl – she could not have been more than twenty years old at the most – clasped her hands together and said, ‘You have come as my saviour, Sir. I knew you would. I read it in the tea leaves.’
They worked hard all that day, John hurrying round to a sign-maker to make up a painted emblem which read ‘At the sign of the Orange Tree, John Rawlings, Apothecary of London, and Suzanne Hallowell, Tavern Keeper. The selling and prescribing of medicinal compounds in one room and delicious drinks and refreshments in another will take place on these premises forthwith.’
Three days late
r John had enrolled his boys into Dame Foster’s School for Young Children but was still puzzling what would be the best education for Rose. Still, he had plunged headlong into his new business regardless of outside interests.
His stock of herbs was pitifully low and nothing was really ready, yet he had all his old training to fall back on, knew what to do in emergencies and was capable of making decisions, though admittedly he had sometimes acted on instinct alone. So with a stout heart and a nervous gut, John and Suzanne had opened their apothecary’s shop-cum-tea-drinking establishment on a Saturday morning.
Outside, the twins, dressed in identical sailor suits, plied hand bells noisily, shouting, ‘Orange Tree opening today, Orange Tree opening today,’ at the tops of their voices. And those ladies who had wandered in to take some refreshment suddenly remembered that they had a megrim from time-to-time and made their way to the other room where the Apothecary stood, clean-shaven and smelling fresh, and sought his advice.
But John’s greatest triumph had been when Dr Joseph Warren had rushed in during the afternoon, his looks marred by the swelling on his face, his voice barely recognizable as he said through gritted teeth, ‘I can’t stand this pain much longer. Take the bloody thing out.’
A former snug had been converted into a consulting room and John, seeing at once that the poor man of medicine was agonized by toothache, led him quickly inside, gave him a large brandy to settle Warren’s nerves – taking a swift one himself, meanwhile – and put on his long apron. He dipped the steel pelican – a dental application that he had borrowed from a blacksmith of all people – and gripping the crown of the aching tooth, prised it out sideways. There was a great deal of blood and a howl of pain from the doctor, who had broken out in a muck sweat at the treatment. Tactfully, the Apothecary wiped him down before applying the towel to himself.
‘God Almighty,’ mumbled the doctor, ‘that was appalling. Had it rotted?’
John passed him another shot of brandy then nodded before applying a lint soaked in Lady’s Bedstraw, which he had found growing wild when out frantically looking for simples two days earlier.
Warren had shaken his head and mouthed, ‘I thought so. But thank you.’
John smiled. ‘I won’t say it has been a pleasure, Doctor Warren. You have another one in there which I would like to have a look at, if you have no objection.’
The doctor gave a half-hearted smile and opened his poor injured mouth once more. Sure enough, there was a nasty abscess forming beside the eye tooth that had just been drawn. John pulled a face and Warren rolled a frantic eye.
‘I’m afraid it’s a bad one, Doctor Warren. Can you bear it now or do you want to come back?’
The doctor sighed, long and deep. ‘Do it now but give me another brandy first. I’ll settle up later.’
The Apothecary nodded and reinserted the steel pelican.
An hour later and it was all over. A somewhat tipsy Dr Warren had left the premises, declaring to the world in general that he had no patients that night and was going to see someone about getting some false teeth made. John had refused to take any money from him, cleverly extracting more value than teeth. The grateful doctor had promised to send him a load of his prescriptions together with various ladies suffering from minor ailments. He also agreed to recommend John Rawlings to anyone whose teeth were in a terminal condition.
‘So who is this man who’s going to make you a false set?’
‘His name is Paul Revere. He’s a clever chap and extremely loyal to the city of Boston,’ Warren answered. ‘He can do anything: clean your teeth, mend your umbrella, fix you up with spectacles …’
John made a mental note to pass this information on to Suzanne.
‘… make rattles for a baby. He also happens to be the finest silversmith I know.’
‘I must make his acquaintance.’
‘Oh, indeed you must, believe me,’ answered Dr Warren and made his way, very carefully, into the dusk.
EIGHT
The first month in which the group who had come to Boston through the wilds of Indian country, having been shipwrecked and saved, had passed peacefully enough. Matthew had placed his children in school and gone to work on the docks; Jake O’Farrell had become coachman to a kindly citizen, John Hancock, while his enigmatic wife, Demelza Conway, gave private lessons to women and girls in riding gracefully. Tracey and George, still revealing nothing of their sexuality, had opened a school of swordsmanship and dancing, none too successfully it would appear, the men of Boston being too down-to-earth for such fol-de-rolls and fancies. Lady Eawiss kept little Jane Hawthorne run off her feet but paraded herself each day in the teahouses and shops. Rumour was out that she was a rich widow, and therefore there were several ne’er-do-well gentlemen who made it their business to chat to her amicably, at which courtesy she blushed and simpered.
John’s apothecary shop had opened in earnest. A large spare room at the back of the premises had been converted and now had a separate entrance. So though by day Suzanne served tea and cakes, by night, the apothecary having closed, they returned to their former glory as a tavern and meeting house. This was run most adequately by Irish Tom, whose very size proved a discouragement to those who wanted to make any trouble. Meanwhile, the Apothecary stayed around for a while in case of medicinal emergencies. All would have been well in his world had it not been for Rose, who had not yet found a suitable school. So it was that one evening in late April, John decided to walk to the establishment run by a certain Madame Clive.
It was situated on the east side of Boston, in a house with a barn behind it. All the way there, John felt that his legs had grown leaden, that his heartbeat was irregular, that he was as attractive to look at as a withered old fig. Thoughts that the owner must be the girl with whom he had fallen in love all those years ago haunted him as he walked slowly on, past the trees that hid the workhouse from public view, past the British Army regiments, many of whom were camped on the Common and whose common humanity resulted in a smell that hit the nostrils as one approached.
In the fading light of an April dusk, John went through every transition possible for a human to experience. All other thoughts were banished from his mind except those of a young lover approaching his sweetheart. Then he took himself to task so firmly that he physically flinched from the castigation. And then his mood swung once more and he laughed aloud and thought of picking a bunch of wild flowers to take to the lady, whether she be his former mistress or not. Rose came firmly into his mind and his thoughts turned away from love, knowing that she must finish her education as she had started and learn about the finer things in life.
He passed the home of one of the richest families in Boston, the Hancocks. There it stood in all its splendour, three storeys high and made of glistening stone. From within, John could hear the sound of voices, probably made by guests invited for cards. The extremely educated tones of Sir Julian Wychwood rang out, his British accent loud and clear in the stillness of the dusk. John thought that of all the gang who had been saved, Julian was the one who had fallen on his feet without any difficulty at all. Brilliance at games of chance was international – the fact that Julian won large sums of money merely regrettable.
A few steps forward brought the Apothecary to a dwelling built close to the Hancock estate with the tell-tale sign of having a barn in close proximity. There was no other building that he could see nearby, so after a few moments of hesitation he seized the knocker and gave a gentle rap. The door was opened almost immediately by a black slave with a lighted candle. John bowed his head.
‘Good evening. Would it be possible to see Madame Clive, please?’
The girl bobbed, her eyes enormous in the candlelight. ‘No, Sir. She gone out. She won’t be back till later.’
John’s tremendous anticipation came crashing down, leaving him feeling somewhat small and sad. He toyed with the idea of asking whether he could wait, then discarded that. Instead he said, ‘May I deposit my card and call again?’
John searched frantically and found what he was looking for – an elegant card case that he had bought from Paul Revere very recently. He handed the girl a card. She read it out loud.
‘John Rawlings, A-poth-o-cary. The Orange Tree, Princes Street, Boston. I will give it to Madame Clive as soon as she returns.’
But John did not answer, his eyes going past the girl and seeing a dimly lit portrait behind her. He stared at it, then said, ‘Would you mind holding your candle up to that, please?’
Her gaze grew surprised but she obediently went up to the portrait and held the light beneath so that the reflection of the flame shone on it. John sighed deeply, seeing a face that had once been so familiar to him but which had changed in the way that all human faces change with the passing of each year. Yet in a way it had grown more beautiful, more tender but at the same time tougher, the lovely young girl’s fine lines gone and in their place others – determination, courageousness, a fortitude born of pain and hardship. There was also a resolve to keep living, to enjoy what was left, to fight to the finish and shout hurrah at the end of it all.
He must have exclaimed and taken a pace forward, because the girl called out, ‘Abraham, come ye here a minute.’
From the back of the house came the clump of running feet and a large negro, dressed in bright blue breeches and a white shirt, came, round-eyed, to see what was going on. John took a step back, apologising.
‘I’m sorry if I startled you. I’ll be going now. Please present my compliments to Madame Clive.’
Leaving his calling card, John backed his way out and hurried off. Near the King’s Chapel on Treamount Street stood a tavern called the Duke of Marlborough, filled with the British militia, drinking beer and talking loudly. John, somewhat cautiously, made his way inside, determined to have a drink even though he had heard the inn spoken of as a haunt for Englishmen which would not be touched by the true Bostonians. Every night since the occupation by the British there were tavern brawls and affrays, the sullen men of Boston angry with the invaders. Females in the alleyways of the North End were jostled and raped by the occupying militia and soldiers were shoved off wharves and bridges to emerge spluttering in the water below. Some girls welcomed them secretly into their beds and the birth rate soared. In view of all this, John entered the tavern quietly and sat down in the shadows, consuming a long pint of ale.